Bengaluru, Nov 13: Relentless lobbying by too many aspirants of ministerial berths from both Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) is likely to delay the much awaited expansion of chief minister H D Kumaraswamy-led Karnataka cabinet at least for two more months.
If sources are to be believed the cabinet expansion may take place in January 2019, though the appointments to boards and corporations may happen before yearend.
In fact the cabinet expansion was supposed to have taken place in June, but was put off giving lame excuses, at least four times. First it was non-availability of AICC president Rahul Gandhi, and then came urban local body elections, followed by the inauspicious month of Ashada and then the recent bypolls to three Lok Sabha and two assembly constituencies.
With Congress-JD(S) registering a resounding 4-1 victory in the byelections, Kumaraswamy is again under pressure to fill up vacancies and he has decided to meet AICC president Rahul Gandhi sometime next week in New Delhi after holding consultations with senior local Congress leaders.
But it’s not going to be easy for the ruling partners and is bound to create more problems for them as the list of aspirants have almost doubled after the bypolls. All six Congress MLAs from Ballari have been aspiring for ministerial berths with the party registering an emphatic victory in the recent Ballari Lok Sabha bypoll under the leadership of water resources minister DK Shivakumar.
As of now there are eight vacancies – six in Congress and two in JD(S) in the Kumaraswamy cabinet.
From the JD(S) camp, interim chairman of the legislative council Basavaraj Horatti, Arkalgud MLA AT Ramaswamy and Sakleshpur MLA HK Kumaraswamy are keen to join the cabinet, following the resignation of N Mahesh, the lone BSP MLA, from Kumaraswamy’s cabinet last month.
Horatti, who is now the acting chairman of legislative council, is hoping to get primary and secondary education portfolio, which he held during the JD(S)-BJP coalition government over a decade ago.
Senior party leaders, however, feel that filling vacant berths would fuel dissidence in the Congress and provide another opportunity for the BJP to destabilise the coalition government. Also, they said, the government won’t have its experienced ministers to face the winter session of the assembly to be held in December if cabinet expansion happens now.
“The cabinet expansion early next year gives Kumaraswamy enough time to remove non-performing ministers and accommodate ministers from different communities to present a new leadership ahead of the Lok Sabha elections,” said a senior JD(S) leader.
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